


The Bird

by suire_oran, TheCaitlin



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Tattoo AU, Teen AU, for lilly, mckirk - Freeform, slight mckirk i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:41:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suire_oran/pseuds/suire_oran, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCaitlin/pseuds/TheCaitlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard McCoy, a tattoo artist gives Jim Kirk some ink, a bird, which binds them to each other in a way neither of them were expecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [knightinwritingarmor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinwritingarmor/gifts).



> This is a gift for our best friend Lilly. It was written by two people who aren't actually in the Star Trek fandom, but very much love someone who is. If you see errors or any OOC, just let us know. We love all forms of feedback and wholly admit to our lack of knowledge in this fandom. Tumblr, Wikipedia, and the endless wealth of knowledge that Lilly possesses very much made this possible.

AT McCOY'S TATTOO PARLOR

Leo looked up from his desk as the bell chimed. At three in the afternoon, his shop was almost always empty, which is why he was pleasantly surprised to see a young man poke his head around the corner.

"You open," the young man asked. He voice was soft and his hair was a honeyed blonde and slightly ruffled. It was obvious he had put a lot of effort into making it look like he had just woken up. He was wearing a tight white v-neck, which accentuated his pectorals and biceps, over a pair of bootcut blue jeans which wholly failed in hiding the perkiness of his ass.

"Yeah, we are," Leo replied, "what can I do for you?" The hint of an innuendo spiced his voice.

"I'm looking to get some ink and I heard this was a good place to go."

"You heard right. What are you looking to get done?" 

"This," the young man pulled out a sketchbook and flipped to drawing of a bird, all blocks of color and tribal lines, it's neck bent back over its wings in a burst of joy and freedom. Altogether it was quite beautiful. "I want it on my lower ribs."

Leo took the sketch and studied it, looking at the young man from the corner of his eyes. He had leaned up against the counter and was watching Leo look at the drawing with the air of who was accustomed to charming his way into achieving his goals.

"D'you think you can do it?" He asked the question already knowing the answer.

"Most definitely," Leo replied. It wasn't that complicated of a design and Leo knew he would have no problem applying it to skin. "How old are you, anyway?"

The young man pulled out a school ID reading James Kirk, Senior Class of 2008, Oxford High School.

"I'm 18, don't worry."

"I can see that. Shouldn't you be in class, Mr. Kirk?"

"Senioritis is getting pretty bad. Thought I'd go do something interesting. And call me Jim."

Leo smiled. Dang, this kid was cute.

"Right," he said, "I’ll start sketching out, picking colors. Can you come by sometime next week? Sometime when you aren’t supposed to be in school?”

Jim just smiled again, and said, “I’ll see you next Thursday then.”

“Oh, hey!” Leo called after Jim, “Call me Leo.”

Jim smiled and waved, before strolling out into the late afternoon sun. Leo turned, and grabbed the sketchbook off the counter and a couple of pens and dropped them in his office. He then went around the shop, locking up and turning lights off, before grabbing his own thick sketchbook and padding back to his office. Once he had his work space set up, he reached for Jim’s book. What he saw took his breath away.

The first several pages were stunning landscapes of what must have been imagined places, crimson suns in a teal sky over silver fields, sweeping gray-green canyon walls with golden cities built into the sides, an open field of purple plants with a huge night sky complete with several moons, and a series of rings arching across the sky. The colors were vibrant and splashed across the pages, overrunning the lines and blending to create brilliant swirls of color. After came simpler, striking still lifes, in dark swaths of india ink. A bird, launching itself into flight, the soft speckles on it’s down in stark relief with the soft swirling lines of it’s wings. A man, sitting on a bench at a bus stop under an old oak tree with dappled light streaming down from above. 

Leo began to draw.

At first it was just the bird, done in different styles, starting with Jim’s bright sweeps of colors and edging more into Leo’s favored techniques of short black strokes with bursts of pigment bleeding through. And then it moved on, page after page filling his sketchbook with bits and pieces of Jim’s work, spinning off into brighter works, detailed pieces of one of his trees, the profile of the old man, the three moons high in an indigo sky.

Leo set his pen down, stretched his fingers, shook out his ink stained hands, and stretched up, cracking his back. His eyes caught his clock - 4:00 am. He hadn’t even realized. Looking around, he took in the chaos that was his desk, the usually pristine space overflowing with paper marked with thick lines of ink swirling and crashing into one another. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so inspired. He hadn’t drawn for such a long period of time since his apprenticeship. He smiled softly to himself, and then began packing up the drawings, shuffling them in folders to show Jim next week.

~~~

The next week Jim was right on time. He strolled through the door, a cocky grin on his face, whistling a melodious tune. Leo looked up with a smile on his face, but he felt in his stomach the butterflies of apprehension. He was going to show Jim the finalized version of his bird today and he was kind of nervous. His art was kind of like his soul made physical, the inks and paper manifestations of his internal workings. So he was always a bit anxious to show people his creations. Leo had shuffled away the sketchbook full of his musings on Jim’s art onto a shelf above his desk and hadn’t touched it since. He directed Jim towards his studio while he went back to his office to get the book. When he walked back into the studio Jim was lounging on the bench and staring at the ceiling. 

Leo pulled up a chair and flipped the book open to the birds. He had drawn four variants, changing the color schemes and the thickness of the line slightly. Jim's mouth fell open as he picked up the sheets, taking in the flowing lines, the slightly blurred reds and yellows and the dotted wings. He traced the extended feathers of the second version and softly said ‘this one’. 

“This is stunning.”

“It’s what you drew. I just copied your design.”

“No, it isn't, not really. It's better. It’s, it’s perfect.”

Leo beamed at the kid. He thrived off people complimenting his work.

“Well, let’s get to it then. You sure you know where you want it?”

“Yeah. Right here," Jim said, pointing to a spot just under his right pec, towards his side. 

“Okay, well take off your shirt and go ahead and lie down.”

While Leo went off to assemble all of his needles and inks onto his cart, Jim spread out on the table, luxuriating in the stretch. When Leo returned Jim was lying on his back, arms crossed behind his head with his legs dangling off the edge of the table. His bronze chest was flexed, showing off his defined pecs and biceps. 

“Like what you see?” Jim asked salaciously. 

Leo just rolled his eyes and instructed Jim to roll onto his left side. He began the process of preparing the skin while Jim just stared straight ahead. 

“So," Leo said, eager to break the ice, “where are you from anyway? You don’t sound like a local.”

Jim smiled and responded “Yeah, I’m from Iowa originally. Just moved here a couple years ago.”

“Iowa, huh. Alright, this might sting a little. I’m going to start the outlines now."

The gentle hum of the needle started up, providing a gentle background noise to Jim’s easy chatter. He talked about how much he hated Iowa, about his high school, about how he was working for grades good enough to get out of Mississippi so he could get into a good college. He talked about his art, how drawing was his way of expression when dealing with all the problems at home, like how his mother just checked out when his father died and how he hated his new step dad, Frank. He told Leo about his father who died in Operation Desert Storm and how proud of him he was for giving his life for his country.

Leo in turn told him about his wonderful grandmother, about how she had always encouraged him to pursue whatever made him happy, even when that path took him away from college. He spoke about how she supported his love of tattoos and how her death summer before had been devastating. He talked about being raised in Georgia and the move to Mississippi. But most of all he talked about his art, the power in creating lines swirling over unbroken skin, the beauty of the crisp black ink crossing and accentuating the human body. 

Occasionally Jim would suck his teeth as the needle moved over a rib or a particularly sensitive spot. Leo made sure to pause and give him breaks, but the process went quickly as he fell into a rhythm, his needle flying over Jim’s skin and the conversation flowing easily between them. Eventually, he sat up, removed his gloves, and reached for the hand mirror. Jim snatched it from Leo as the artist went to hand the mirror to him, his eagerness to see Leo's work glowing on his face.

Jim smiled, and breathed out, “Oh Leo, it’s perfect.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is fluff with the tiniest hint of plot. We love you Lilly.

 

Jim threw his pen down in frustration and defeat.

"Ok, I give up. I have officially been defeated by calculus."

Leo walked into the living room from the kitchen carrying a tray laden with sandwiches and lemonade. His house was old, but well kept. The furniture, old and inherited from an aunt or picked up as a consignment shop, was all warm woods and worn upholstery. It was comfortable and cozy, but immaculately organized. Everything had a place and was in that place. On one side of the house there was a large bay window with a wide seat and a red cushion set into it. On the left was a tall bookcase filled up with volumes; small, paperback novels bought for a dollar at the continence store; big, glossy printed, coffee table photograph collections of bugs and houses and constellations; dog-eared biographies; a couple of medical books, one on pathology and the other on the history of medicine; and travel magazines and brochures, all stacked neatly in next to each other. On the other side of the window was a large watercolor Leo had done himself. It depicted a mossy pond with a large, overhanging willow, it's branches trailing into the water among the lily pads floating there. It was just becoming evening and the last dying light of the sun streamed in through the window, mottled by the shadows of trees in the distance.

He set the food down on the coffee table next to Jim where he was sitting on the floor, his papers and books scattered untidily across Leo's oriental rug, the only mess in the otherwise spotless house. His legs were crossed and he was leaning over them, elbows on the floor, to stare angrily down at a page covered in letters, numbers, and squiggles. With an exasperated harrumph, Jim flung himself backward to lay staring up at the ceiling. 

"You hungry?" Leo picked up a sandwich and put it in Jim's mouth without waiting for a reply. Jim sat up, propping himself with one arm while taking the sandwich from his mouth with the other hand.

"Mmmmrggh," he grumbled appreciatively. 

"Glad you like my cooking," Leo said, with a laugh. "Ok, let's take a look at this damn math." 

It was the week before finals and Jim was on an intellectual rampage. He had been over at Leo's every day for the past week, claiming that he studied better there because it was farther away from the highway - and therefore quieter- or some other excuse, but Leo knew better.

It had been about three months since that first encounter at the tattoo shop. They had bonded over Leo's inking of Jim and had continued to hang out once the tattoo was completed. Now, neither could remember life before the other. If Leo was being honest with himself, he couldn't imagine living without Jim by his side. He’d never been a big one for companionship, choosing instead to throw himself into his work and his art. But Jim was easy to talk to and he understood Leo. With Jim, Leo no longer felt the isolation he had been resigned to since his move from Georgia. Even if he had been the outgoing type, it was hard to make new friends in a new place. Everyone who lived in Oxford was either a college student or a family. He didn't feel like he belonged to either group and so it was hard for him to get to know them.

He felt incredibly lucky to have found Jim.

Leo sat down next to Jim and picked up the piece of paper. Jim stood up, stretching his well-built frame towards the ceiling. He stalked towards the fireplace mantle to look at the framed photographs placed there.

"C'mon, you need to focus on this," Leo said.

"Who is this?" Jim asked, ignoring the math and Leo's gentle supplication. He picked up one of the pictures on the mantle. "Is this your girlfriend?"

Leo stood and joined him at the fireplace, taking the frame from him. In it was a picture of a beautiful woman, bleach blonde and thin with elegant features. She was leaning up against the railing of a balcony somewhere up high and in a city, fashionably dressed and holding a glass of champagne. She was not smiling at the camera. 

"She used to be. We broke up a couple years ago. Well, I say broke up. She dumped my ass." He put the picture back.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that." Jim looked down trying to look sad but Leo could tell he was just trying to conceal the fact that he wasn't. "She kinda looks like a bitch anyway."

Leo laughed. "Thanks, I guess she does kinda."

"So, why did she break up with you?" - Leo could hear the forced nonchalance in his voice.

"I guess she knew something about me that I hadn't realized yet. It was damn sucky, but I'm over it."

"Then why do you still have her picture up?"

"I don't know, I suppose she was such a large part of my life and she affected such an important change in me that she sort of deserves to be remembered."

Jim looked at Leo, a question on his lips. It trembled there for a moment before he shut down and took a step back. Leo hadn’t realized how close they had gotten, and hastily took a step back too. Feeling a little awkward, he ran a hand through his hair, shrugged and said, “So. Calculus right?”

“Yeah, calculus”, Jim replied, distantly. Leo glanced at Jim, wondering what had come over him so quickly. But before he could ask, Jim went back to where he had sprawled his books and, plopping down, grabbed a pencil and vigorously attacked his homework.

Leo wanted to do something to break the sudden tense moment, but was unwilling to interrupt Jim while he was working on his homework. So he sat down in the frayed green couch behind Jim and pulled out his sketchpad. He hadn’t meant to draw anything in particular, just a couple of basic tattoo ideas that had been floating around his mind in the past couple of weeks. But as the lines developed on the page, he saw the curve of a back, the harsh angle of elbows, a head gently resting in a hand and realized he was drawing Jim, stretched out on his floor. 

The Jim in his picture was different from then one staring angrily at his math. In the drawing, he was smiling up at Leo, the usual carefree grin on his face, the one that gave him that look of boyish wonder. His ankles were crossed and he was relaxed, with none of the stress or worry lines that currently marred the real Jim’s face. The strokes of the pen created streams light, which poured through the rough outline of a window to pool around him, highlighting his face and underscoring his youth.

Leo had also had added a new tattoo. It swirled around the curve of the kid's ankle, modeled off of one of the strange plants from Jim's sketchbook. 

Jim looked up at him, his gaze suddenly intense and piercing. Leo continued to look down at his hands, watching them fiddle with his pen.

"Can I see?" He stood and gesticulated at the pad in Leo's lap.

"Uh, yeah, sure," Leo said, standing up to hand the pad to Jim. 

Jim took a step, closing the distance between them but not taking the drawing from Leo. He stood next to the other man, shoulder to shoulder, peering down at his work.

"That's me," he said, the awe in his voice apparent.

"Yeah, I was just doodling. It's not that great," said Leo, pushing his fingers through his hair in embarrassment. 

"No, I love it. Really." Jim smiled at Leo and took the pad from him, taking in the small details that Leo had thrown in, tracing a finger over where his tattoo was, before setting it on the coffee table. He turned, beaming at Leo.

Leo smiled back at him, but his hands were clasping and unclasping nervously against his thigh. Jim put his hand on Leo's to still them. Leo looked up, eye to eye with Jim. His face was so close. He just wanted to lean in and- before he knew what he was doing Leo was gently kissing Jim's lips. The world stopped, his eyes closed, and he savored the sweetness of Jim's lips on his. They were soft and supple and warm. He could stay this way forever.

The moment broke as Jim pulled away, sharply.

"Dammit, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I should not have done that, I know. I'm sorry. I-" Leo was babbling, not sure what to do to rectify the situation. He had ruined any relationship he had had with Jim, he was sure of it. This was it; he was never going to talk to him ever again. He didn't now how he could live now, without Jim....

"No, it's ok. You just - surprised me, that's all. I didn't know that you were, I mean, that you like....” Jim took a deep breath. "How long have you felt this way about me?"

"I'm not really sure. If you're asking how long I've been gay, I suppose I've known that for a while, ever since Jocelyn broke up with me. She knew before I did. It took me a bit to figure it out. That was a really hard time for me. And I guess I've been attracted to you since the get go."

"Why haven't you done anything about?"

"I didn't know how you'd react! I had no idea if you felt the same way about me...I still don't." Leo wouldn't meet Jim's gaze. 

"Well, here," Jim said, coming closer. He took Leo gently by the chin and tilted his face up - "Let me clear that up for you.”

Jim kissed Leo, drawing him deeper into the embrace, his right hand wrapping around the nape of his neck, fingers pushing into his dense, soft hair while his left arm settled at the base of his back. Leo wrapped Jim in his arms, holding him as tightly against his body as he could. They broke away from the kiss briefly, Jim smiling as Leo kissed a line down his jaw, before they met again.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, since I know Lilly will ask - here is what we think the tattoo looks like - http://tokyofashion.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Top-10-Tokyo-Tattoo-Shops-2009-027.jpg - although it's loosely described.


End file.
